The Wardship of Stcepcombe. By Charlotte M. Yonge. (National Society.)—Sir
Diggory Upton takes advantage of the minority of his nephew to exercise various oppressive rights or quasi-rights ; among other things he reclaims certain villeins who had migrated from the estate into the city of Winchester during the period of disorganisation caused by the Black Death. One of the family is a promising scholar in the Cathedral school, and claims benefit of clergy. His fortunes are a specially interesting part of the story which Miss Yonge has to tell. She works, with the skill to which her readers are accustomed, much of the politics, civil and ecclesiastical, of the day into her plot. We have preachers who have been inspired by the teaching of Wyclif, of the quieter as well as of the more violent class, and agitators of the Wat Tyler sort; the King himself, with his desire to do right, thwarted by
his own weakness as well as by selfish counsellors ; the great prelate, William of Wykeham ; and other personages, real and fictitious, which go to make up a picture of the time. Miles Upton, the young Lord of Steepcombe, betrothed by his uncle to the Lady Ragnhild, but loving Alice Standish, supplies the element of romance.
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